Op-Ed from the Organic Consumers Association:
“In 2011, we wrote an article exposing the then-popular trend in food marketingpromoting “local” foods as “sustainable,” “healthy” or “natural,” even when they werent.

As we wrote at the time, local often means nothing more than food that has been sourced from within a prescribed geographic area. (According to Walmart and Big Food, local refers to anything produced within a 400-mile radius). But because a growing number of conscientious consumers actively seek out the local labeland are willing to pay a premium for itcorporations routinely co-opt the term so they can sell more product, at higher prices, in order to increase profit margins by promising (but not actually delivering) added value.

Fast forward a couple of years, and we see that sales of local food are still on the rise, as are sales of natural and more recently, Non-GMO foods. And today, just as they were a few years ago, consumers are still being duped by corporations that use these labels to pass off products as something they arent,” quoting Ronnie Cummins and Katherine Paul, Organic Consumers Association.
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